The current invention represents a system which facilitates the use of electronic catalogs in a manner that is presentational and language neutral. This is accomplished by managing and manipulating the system at the level of conceptual entities or units and the separation their presentational form, from their manipulation form.
As business activities are becoming increasingly more international, companies are required, in each country in which a company conducts business, to operate in several different languages. The diversity of these cultures produces a challenge for information systems. Each culture wants the software and data it produces to support the local conventions and cultures. This means that software must be translated for each of these cultures. The cultures can differ in terms of script (written languages used), languages, meaning of pictures and images, currency conventions, address and telephone number conventions, data and time conventions, units of measures commonly used, and many other aspects of the information system.
Typically, the term globalization is used to refer to the process of enabling software to support multiple languages. Globalization involves removing all cultural biased conventions from the software and placing them into external resource files so that the software can more quickly be adapted to the conventions and language of a particular culture. The term localization is used to refer to the process of providing a particular cultural binding of the software. The localization process involves translating the strings, images, and other elements of the system to a form that matches the local conventions of a particular culture. In the context of this system, translation can be substituting words, phrases, images, sound or another form of multi-media content to those which are more familiar or correct for a particular locale.
Further, the cost of translating systems and information can be quite expensive. This cost is particularly high if the information system changes frequently. Each change must be made for all the locales. If a system can not manage the effects of change efficiently, increased costs are the result as unneeded translations are required.
Today, globalization systems are limited in that their operation is restricted to the string level where each string in the system is placed in a resource file and then translated. These systems are further restricted to loading no more than one resource file at a time, consequently, they are unable to support more than a single locale at any particular moment in time.
The instant inventive system utilizes a hierarchical knowledge representation in order to more efficiently support the translation and management of multiple locales. Utilizing this type of knowledge representation provides two key advantages. The first is a greater ability to differentiate semantically different symbols within the system. The second, is the ability to reutilize the translation of these symbols in the knowledge representation scheme with concurrent local support.
This problem is particularly acute for electronic catalogs deployed in the global scope of the Internet where the need for concurrent language and presentation support for multiple locales is evident.
This instant computer software system facilitates the use of electronic catalogs in a manner that is presentational and language neutral. This is accomplished by managing and manipulating the system at the level of conceptual entities or units and the separation of these conceptual entities presentational form, from their manipulation form.